Uncle ‘Ashamed’ of Alleged Bombers

MONTGOMERY VILLAGE, Md.–Ruslan Tsarni, an uncle of the two suspects in the Boston Marathon bombings, told reporters outside his Maryland home Friday that he was ashamed of what they allegedly did.

He said he didn’t believe that Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev had an ideological motive but called them “losers—not being able to settle themselves [in America] and thereby just hating everyone who did.”

He added: “This has nothing to do with Chechnya.”

The uncle urged his fugitive nephew Dzhokhar to turn himself in and ask for “forgiveness from the victims, from the injured…He put a shame on our family, he put a shame on the entire Chechen ethnicity because everyone now plays with the word Chechen, so he put that shame on the entire ethnicity.”

Law-enforcement officers descended on Mr. Tsarni’s home Friday morning and he was questioned by investigators for several hours. The brick home is on a quiet cul-de-sac in Montgomery Village, a suburb of Washington, D.C.

At around 11:20 a.m., Mr. Tsarni stepped out of the house, wearing a blue golf shirt, pants, and flip-flops and spoke to reporters for about ten minutes. He appeared to be in tears as he walked back up the steps.

Mr. Tsarni said that he hadn’t seen the two brothers since December 2005 and that he was ashamed to learn of the possible family connection to the bombings. He said the children were granted asylum by the U.S. government, having lived previously in Kyrgyzstan.

He wouldn’t say why he had kept his own family away from the children of his brother for so long, adding only, “It’s personal,” he said, with a helicopter flying overhead. “I didn’t like them. I just wanted my family to be away from them.”

Mr. Tsarni said he spoke with his brother—the suspects’ father—three months ago, after the man recently moved to Russia. Mr. Tsarni said his brother gave him no indication that the nephews might have been plotting something.

He also said that his brother “spent his life bringing bread to their table. Fixing cars. Fixing cars. He didn’t have time or chance or anything, option, he’s been working.”

He said he learned the brothers were suspects after receiving calls from the news media early in the morning. A second uncle also lives in the area.

“Those who suffered, we are sharing with them with their grief,” Mr. Tsarni said. “I’m ready just to meet with them. I’m ready just to bend in front of them, to kneel in front of them, seeking their forgiveness.”

At around 1:30 p.m., Mr. Tsarni came outside again and walked across the street to the home of an elderly woman who another neighbor said was the Tsarni children’s piano teacher. “I’m just going to my neighbor’s to apologize for the discomfort our family has caused them,” he said, declining to comment further. The teacher left her home and walked back with Mr. Tsarni to his home.

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